Saturday, 31 January 2009

Your going to have to excuse me on this one, but I have absolutely no idea about the back story behind this bar. Romy is a brand I hadn't ever seen or heard of before Dean-German-Grocery sent me this bar in my latest sampling package. Here it was I do know - this bar was produced in Germany by Hosta Schokolade (same people as Nippon!!) and was formed of 'milk chocolate filled with coconut cream (50%)'. If anyone has anymore information on this brand, please share.

On the face of things this Romy bar looked very much a 'knock-off' of the Ritter Sport brand. Its 200.0g size and branding aside, it looked very much like a Ritter Sport product. It came in a square bar with an outer wrapper not all that dissimilar looking from the aforementioned German rival. The bar itself was also split into sixteen pieces, this proved highly unpractical for the larger size as the pieces were way too big to eat in one go, it should have been split up double the amount it was. One thing I particularly enjoyed about this bar was the smell. Upon opening the wrapper I was met with a delightful barrage of coconut scents - it reminded me very much of the sweet nutty smell of Bounty bars.

Much like the smell suggested the coconut really dominated the overall taste. The outer milk chocolate complimented the cream filling well. It had a really pleasant creamy taste that grew ever so slightly in its cocoa strength as the melt progressed. Even when eaten in isolation from the truffle filling the outer chocolate still had a strong element of coconut in its flavours - its safe to say if your not a fan of the stuff you don't want to be going near this one. The inner coconut filling was absolutely divine. It was softer than the outer milk chocolate, though had crunchy rougher bits of desiccated coconut throughout. I absolutely loved the taste of the inner cream filling - it was nutty, buttery, creamy and left a longing taste in the mouth. 50.0g of this bar (a rather small sounding four blocks!!!) provided a really satisfying and fulfilling snack.

Overall I think it would be harsh to just view this Romy Classic Cocos bar as a substandard Ritter Sport copycat. This bar tasted fantastic in its own right, and if I have heard correctly that the Ritter Sport Cocos is now going out of production, it should now have a nice little place in the market to call its own. As I stated earlier, if you don't like coconut there isn't anything for you here. If your partial to a coconut and chocolate combination though, then this is a product you should really consider trying - a highly enjoyable bar of chocolate.